Monday 4 April
We were rudely awoken at 3.45 last night by a bang on the deck. Mike leapt out of bed and investigated but could see nothing. We are placed right under a bright spot light and in full view of the security cameras, so his naked body will present an interesting sight to anyone viewing the cctv tapes. I’d seen a large ginger cat in the rubbish dump earlier in the day, and we finally decided it may have been him, but how he got on the boat I’ll never know. Can cats climb ladders? Then again at 8.10am my phone rang and I leapt out of bed, to a wrong number.
The good weather has deserted us today and the Mistral blows coldly from the north. Mike has gone off on the bike to buy boatie things, including some shopping in town – I need a baguette urgently. He’s going to try and find cutlery at the one other supermarket in town. I am supposed to be washing and sanding the cockpit which is in a very poor state, but I don’t feel like it in this wind, so I’m working on the blog instead. We have invited Ulla and Lennart for supper tonight. Taking a coffee in the restaurant, checking emails, there’s one from our prospective buyer who had threatened originally to visit on 15 April. He had to change his plans and now wants to come this weekend! Yikes. We are not nearly ready, but never mind. My day of rest now cancelled, I had to go back to work. The sun has returned, but the Mistral still howls.
Mike went off on his bike at 4pm to buy fresh mussels from the mussel farm nearby for dinner tonight, only to find them closed. That’s France for you. We wandered over to Ulla and Lennart to renege on our dinner invitation on account of no mussels, and stayed for a couple of glasses of wine. We have agreed to try again tomorrow, and if the mussel farm is still closed we will get something else. Mike and I ate various interesting scraps for dinner.
Tuesday 5 April
The dinky little lady from the boulangerie comes by the marina at 9.15ish every morning (except Monday) selling bread, so today I bought a baguette and arranged for her to hoot at my boat every morning.
The wind has eased considerably and it is remarkably warm – hot even. We slogged all day on the boat and at 4pm, Mike went off again and came back triumphantly with 4kg of the biggest, juiciest mussels we ever saw. I did roasted vegetables to go with – it was a very good dinner and Ulla and Lennart were good company. We used the mussel shells as pincers to eat with.Wednesday 6 April
Pinta went into the water early this morning, too early for us to come and watch. They are parked on the wall outside the marina for the moment. Today is market day, so we all walked in and spent a couple of hours walking around. I love all markets, and French markets are usually good. Not only was there a wondrous selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, but all manner of kitchen utensils (we finally got cutlery and various other useful things), clothing, shoes, watches and jewellery, fabrics and furnishings, delicious ready cooked food and the general rubbish you always find at markets. It was good fun to browse. Walking back we stopped to watch a lone German boat enter the lock into the Rhone River. It is very early in the season and the current against will be strong, but he assured us that with a 120hp engine he would be fine. I enjoyed the walk in and back again, but forgot to put barrier cream on and have burned my upper arms and neck – ouch.
After lunch I checked my emails again and discovered that our prospective buyer, Rudy, is arriving tomorrow afternoon! I arranged for Helmut to collect him.
Back to the boat and hard at work. The wind has died off completely and it is very warm – extraordinarily so for the time of year, but we believe it is like this all over.
Mike is totally enamoured with my computer. In the evenings after dinner whilst I read a book he either plays chess against a machine that doesn’t argue with him or take hours to make a move (and by hitting control/alt he can undo a move he regrets), or watches dvds with headphones on. We have to buy a set of speakers so we can both watch together.
Thursday 7 April
We have scrubbed and washed and sanded and oiled everything that needs it. By 3pm, we’d finished doing all that could be done in the time and just sat limply in the cockpit and waited. At 5.45pm Helmut drove up with Rudy, both speaking German and very matey. There is absolutely nothing in this marina apart from the restaurant and it is a good mile from town, so Helmut agreed to come back later and drive Rudy into a hotel. Rudy spent about an hour and a half looking at Forever and chatting with us over coffee and biscuits. He had fallen in love (his words) with Forever because of three things – she is a Hallberg Rassy, she has an in-mast roller furling main, and she has electric winches. His wife suffers badly from seasickness so he wants a boat he can comfortably sail single handed. He seemed very taken with our boat, and a little after seven he phoned Helmut and left, agreeing to return the next day. He said he was flying back to Austria on Saturday.
Friday 8 April
Lennart wandered by this morning and stopped for coffee. Their boat, Pinta, is still on the wall outside the marina. The wind has blown up again today. According to Lennart it will ease tomorrow and then the Mistral will return with a vengeance Sunday through Tuesday.
We went to buy a few things at the chandlery here (I always go along to translate for Mike) and the young woman in there asked me if I was French! Ha ha, I said, not at all, I am English. She then said my French was impeccable and that I didn’t even have an English accent. Very flattering, I’m sure, but not true. Over the last few months, I have watched a lot of French films and did a course on the internet, so I do feel more confident speaking French than before, but not that much.
We are going about our business as normal, but there is no sign of Rudy. Disappointing. He had seemed so keen and so impressed by the boat. I just saw Helmut driving around the marina – he tells me he took Rudy to the airport this morning! Amazingly rude – not even a phone call.
Ah well. We are not so very disappointed as this means we will now be doing the canal journey as planned. And we are so glad we have done all that work. Forever is lovely and clean and shiny, and now I can relax a bit.
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